Silicon Valley Meeting - Part 2
Silicon Valley Meeting - Part 2
Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 10:30 AM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
www.ZaZona.com
I want to thank Tracy Lyon and Pete Bennett (www.nomoreH1B.com) for
showing up at the meeting for unemployed. We must get the word out to
unemployed people about the role H-1B is playing in their job malaise.
Tracy Lyon wrote an account of the unemployed worker meeting. Her
candid view of what happened and why makes for some very interesting
reading. I cut and pasted two of Tracy's emails together so please
excuse incongruities.
The WITI conference that Tracy mentioned will be on June 24 and 25, in
San Jose, CA. Many upper managment executives (Presidents, VP) attend
this conference. The attendence has gone down due to the recession and
high unemployment in Silicon Valley but it may be worthwhile for some
women techies to show up at their meeting to tell them about H-1B.
Their website is at www.witi.com.
Just wanted to give you a little "update" about Marcia Stein's
gathering this afternoon here in Silicon Valley. I was finally able to
meet Pete Bennett there, and we did have the local NBC affiliate there
as well covering this "event".
The turnout was pretty abysmal - we counted no more than 35 or 40
folks, but my own family's picket signs seemed to attract the most
attention, and of course, since we were the only ones who brought our
kids along (they are both VERY cute, but of course I'm biased) the kids
(holding signs too, including our personal favorite, "My Daddy will
work for food") attracted plenty of attention, and I'm betting they
will be on the local news telecast tonight at 6:00 p.m.
We made sure to add your website address to the bottom of all of our
signs, and both the reporter and the camera man asked us to repeat it
several times.
There was also a reporter from the Pacific News agency there who both
Pete and I talked to at length, and he was very interested to read your
research and stats regarding visas on the website. Also, most of the
other "jobless" in attendance wrote down all of your web info. So check
both your email and the site for many more hits in the coming days.
We were very specific to point out to all the reporters present that
this is not a racial issue, and that we should definitely expect
American employers to take care of their own citizens first. We also
made it VERY clear that if all of the H-1B and L-1 visa workers
currently in this country were deported tomorrow, there would no longer
be a jobless problem in the tech sector, and all the unemployed U.S.
workers would have jobs. That seemed to strike a chord with them, but
who knows how the spin doctors will treat this info.
Okay, we just watched ourselves on the news, and it was a little
disappointing, but here goes
They only briefly showed our other signs, which clearly stated "No H-1B
or L-1 Visas" and instead chose to focus on our other signs, "No Job?
No Tax Cut!" And "Jobless Recovery?" rather than dwelling specifically
on the H-1B visa issue. They NEVER showed our sign which said "Abolish
Slavery - end H-1B and L-1 Now" nor did they show for more than a
second our other sign which used the international sign for "no" to
H-1B and L-1, even though we clearly told them our opposition to these
visa programs was not a racial issue, but I don't think they "got" it.
They did, however, manage to leave in the portion in which Gerry
clearly stated that "he was directly replaced by an H-1B visa holder,
and he worked for Sun Microsystems at that time" (the Sun HR people
should love THAT one).
They did NOT speak with Pete Bennett at all, so basically Gerry and I
were the only ones ranting about the foreign worker problem, as well as
the big off shoring problem. They didn't use the portion of our
interview in which we said that US employers are also discriminating
against US workers using salaries as their basis either - they skipped
right over that part.
The NBC reporter (never seen her before, she was a bit arrogant and
quite bitchy) listed and scribbled a few notes, but as you have
probably guessed, their focus was more on the unemployment rate in our
county vs. WHY they unemployment numbers are so high. Doesn't surprise
me, though, since NBC is also "MSNBC" and they of course know who
writes their paychecks.
The reporter from Pacific News service was much more interested in the
visa problem, and spent quite a bit of time talking with both Pete and
myself about them, how they are different, and why they are so
attractive to US employers. Many of the people there knew about H-1B
visas, but had no clue about L-1s and how they were being used to
replace US workers. The NBC reporter asked us to differentiate the
two, but never referred to either of them specifically in the story.
She did briefly mention off shoring, and showed another sign and used
another sound bite from another protestor who blamed both the visa and
off shoring problems as major factors, but that was definitely NOT the
focus of this piece.
They did feature the very brief statement Marcia Stein made about
"let's all band together, and network with one another to find a
solution to our jobless problem" but she was about as vanilla and
apolitical as they come with her "speech". The other jobless folks
there listened VERY intently to what we had to say, and several women
came up to me and asked me if I might be interested in speaking about
the topic to the upcoming local WITI (women in technology
international) conference which is being hosted here locally at the end
of next month (not sure they'd want me, but I'd be armed with good info
for them thanks to you and your site :-)
On a scale of 1-10, I'd have to say that I would rate the reception of
our "personal" message with the news media as a 3-4, since they totally
skipped over the main issues, which are greedy corporations exploiting
workers of all nationalities for the sake of their own almighty
dollars, and instead focused on us "poor techies" who are now among the
legions of the long-term local unemployed.
As far as rating what we had to say and our reception to the other
jobless folks there, I would say our receptiveness rating was 8-10,
particularly from those who were already familiar with both your site
and Pete Bennett's. The few we "educated" today were aghast at what
other kinds of jobs were being replaced, and particularly concerned
about the new trend to offshore the audits of income tax returns (we
knew that story would make their blood boil - thanks again to you on
that one).
Never spoke directly with Marcia Stein either - she kind of shunted
herself off to the side and only spoke with a few of those she seemed
to already know - her focus wasn't really any type of focus at all.
There was a woman there handing out cards from NumbersUSA, and she too
was talking about the visa problem, but besides her, Pete and
ourselves, most of the others were just commiserating about their job
losses too. My own personal feeling about these types of issues here
as this is such a diverse population group (and my family and I are so
VERY Caucasian ourselves) is that many people here are loathe to jump
on the immigrant bandwagon, since they don't want to appear to be
racist. I can tell you, however, that our next-door neighbors are both
East Indian, both now US citizens (although neither unemployed, yet)
and they find the whole H-1B and L-1 visa thing disgraceful, or at
least that's what they've told us. They are also incensed about the
quality of these workers coming over, as they have had to work with
them too, and they also feel their skills are sub-par and think the
whole thing is a sham. They are also mad since when they came here 18
years ago, things were much harder for them, and they had to immigrate
the "old fashioned way" and it was HARD. Maybe that's what angers them
the most, who knows. Anyway, we did our best to "educate" those in
attendance, but we were probably "preaching to the choir" as far as
that goes. Don't know if the local media would dare take on the full
political implications this story brings, as again, they certainly know
where their paychecks come from.
written by Tracy Lyon
tmlyon@charter.net
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